The title of the new Romaine Brooks exhibit at the Berkeley Art Museum reminds me of the first time I saw Brooks' famous painting of herself in a man's suit with a top hat pulled down low over a haircut my mother would call "severe." Later, when I learned about Brooks' fifty-year love affair with that other famous American in Paris, Natalie Barney, I became even more fascinated. These lessons were all via lesbian thespians, who happened to be friends' ex-girlfriends and unconsummated crushes, which only added to the excitement of watching them embody the roles of flamboyant Barney and Brooks, cavorting with their salon set in the wild '20s.

I was thrilled to discover that way back in the early years of the century lesbians were stomping around Paris, wearing men's ties and painting portraits of themselves while they were at it.

That tradition continues today with drag king photographers like Cathy Opie and Della Grace. But this exhibit reminds us that too-long forgotten Romaine Brooks first set the tone for our current dyke derring-do photographers. A talented portraitist, Brooks painted important works that are still striking today. Yet, the current show in Berkeley is the first West Coast show of her work, and only her third show ever in the United States.

As Berkeley Art Museum curator Constance Lewallen puts it, she suffers from being an "underknown artist." Surprise, surprise. Even now, many, critics included, are probably not comfortable with her overt canonization of the lesbian image. When I saw the exhibit, one agitated woman turned to me and said "well I love this one" and pointed to the exhibit's most mundane portrait, a fashionable -- and very feminine -- young woman in a white dress.

During the early 1900s in Paris, Brooks' work received critical kudos and was widely exhibited in prestigious venues. Praise comparing her to James McNeill Whistler and the symbolists came despite the fact that she violated art taboos for women by veering away from staid portraits and still lifes. She shocked critics with sensual nudes of her lover, Russian dancer Ida Rubenstein, exhibited here in the United States for the first time, and a number of portraits of her lesbian peers in all their "masculinely attired" glory.

"Peter, an English Schoolgirl" is one of my favorites. It is actually a painting of the boyish lesbian artist referred to only as "Gluck," who, like Brooks, came from a wealthy family and hated to wear dresses. The title, as well as the subject, shows just how deep our drag roots are.

Another portrait's title, "Una, Lady Troubridge," conjures up an image of a flowing dress and large feathered hat. Instead, this portrait of Radclyffe Hall's lover shows a woman outfitted with monocle and man's suit, clutching one of her dachshunds by its collar.

Perhaps most compelling of all are Brooks' series of self portraits, charting her course from a heavily veiled ultra-feminine Edwardian youth to an austere but confident modern adult rendered in stark black and white tones. But while Brooks shattered artistic conventions with her choice of subject, she was ultra-traditional stylistically, ignoring many important art movements of her time, including impressionism, cubism and surrealism.

According to archival material assembled in the catalog, Brooks, like her lover Natalie Barney, was attempting to create a lesbian amazon aesthetic. Whether nude or in gender-ambiguous attire, a Nietzschean androgyne was her answer to the lesbian question.

If that sounds ominous, well, of course, there's always a pothole in queer paradise.

The downside to our talented portraitist was her increasing conservatism, bordering on fascism, that caused her and Barney to "sit-out" World War II as if it were a momentary inconvenience to their social plans. Their salon circle fractured by World War II, Brooks basically gave up painting after her heyday in the '20s. Her more famous friends Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and their set won the war of politics and cultural innovation.

The exhibit, which opened on October 11th (apparently not a conscious reference to National Coming Out Day) will continue through January 21. For those who want to know more, The Berkeley Art Museum and Stanford University are hosting a free symposium: The Modern Woman Revisited, Paris Between the Wars which will be held on October 27th and 28th.

There's more going on around town. But act quickly to see these shows:

"The Life and Times of Harvey Milk"(Fri/20-Mon/23) This 1984 Academy Award winning documentary about Harvey Milk, perhaps the world's most famous gay politician, has just been re-released in a new 35 mm print. Rob Epstein's (Paragraph 175) and Richard Schmiechen's definitive documentary traces the rise to political power of the beloved "Mayor of Castro Street" and his untimely assassination by right wing "psycho-supe" Dan White. If you haven't seen it before, run, don't walk to the Castro Theatre.

Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., SF; (415)621-6120. October 20th-23.

"Aimee and Jaguar" (Thru Oct 31) In Nazi Berlin, two women met and fell in love: Lilly Wust was a "model Aryan mother," Felice Schragenheim a Jewish lesbian in the underground resistance passing as a non-Jew. Their unlikely relationship lasted 18 months until Felice was discovered by the Gestapo. Felice died in a concentration camp, but Lily survived to tell their story to Austrian journalist Erica Fischer. Her book "Aimee and Jaguar" has inspired several films, most recently a powerful feature film by German director Max Färberbök. -- Jeanne Carstensen, SF Gate

"Naked Boys Singing" (Extended thru Nov 30) Full monty indeed! The nudity is unapologetically gratuitous but also thematic in this Off Broadway hit receiving its local premiere to open Theatre Rhinoceros' season in a co-production with Jonathan Reinis Presents. F. Allen Sawyer directs the musical revue about love and romance among men in which every song is a story (un)covering many aspects of gay life from gyms and safe sex to the 15 minutes of fame accorded a certain organ at a bris. -- SF Examiner

And there's more coming up in the near future. Don't miss the dance and photo extravaganzas:

Bill T. Jones: "You Walk?"(Fri/27-Sat/28) The quintessential and controversial queer choreographer Bill T. Jones' latest composition will be performed by the dynamic dancers of the Bill T. Jones/ Arnie Zane Dance Company. "You Walk?" is the latest of his evening length works that combine theater and dance. The illustrious Jones shares his latest notions of poetry in motion on the themes of cultural collision, collusion and transformation.

Arnie Zane: "Continuous Replay"(Wed/25-Dec 17) This provocative exhibit by the late, award-winning choreographer and photographer Arnie Zane features a talk on October 26th by his partner, and fellow choreographer, dancer Bill T. Jones. While more well known as a choreographer and dancer, Zane was first recognized as a photographer and continued snapping the shutter throughout his dancing years. The photo a gogo includes a wide range of subjects from young dancers to elderly women.